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As our planet continues to heat up and sea level rises commensurately due to melting glacial water, we think about ways to survive, comfortably if possible, and one of these ways is to switch from gasoline and coal to forms of energy production that don’t require the burning of carbon-derived materials. We are making progress, but we have a long, long way to go.

It’s that time of year when all of the birds start arriving and setting up homesteads here on eastern Long Island. More and more southern birds have been overwintering so it has become hard to say which ones are year-round residents and which ones are part-timers.

Just about everyone has a rough idea of what “food chains” and “food pyramids” are. The ones at the very bottom are the microbes, single-celled diatoms and the like; the ones at the top are the “top” carnivores. In one respect, the human is a top carnivore. In another, a top herbivore. In all respects — strict vegetarians omitted — an omnivore.

I just read in today’s New York Times that Nashville has a case of the demolition blues. I may have the same sickness. I also read a reminiscence by Beth Howard, a writer who rented the little farmhouse in Eldon, Iowa, made famous by Grant Wood’s 1930 painting “American Gothic.” Two American themes going in the opposite direction.

In last week’s column, I wrote about the beginning of the local eastern bluebird season. Then I received Joe Giunta’s annual recap of the East Hampton Town area’s bluebird box yield for 2017. Joe and his volunteers have been checking out and maintaining the boxes at nine different East Hampton Town sites and two boxes on North Haven in Southampton Town for nearly 20 years.

The leaves, except the very lowest, are off the local hardwood trees, most of which are oaks, with fewer hickories, beech, sassafras, and maples. As one drives along the back roads and looks up to either side, the globular bundles of dried leaves and twigs stand out. They’re mostly the size of soccer balls — we would have a hard time trying to fit inside — but they are the perfect size for gray squirrels, our most common mammal larger than a rat.